STEPHENSON, WILLIAM SAMUEL (1896-1989)

Sir William Stephenson, a fourth-generation
Manitoban who played a major role in intelligence
in World War II, was born in Winnipeg
on January 11, 1896, the son of a pioneer
family. As a teenager, he was fascinated with
radio and enjoyed making and using radio
transmitters and receivers. In 1914 Stephenson
volunteered for the Royal Canadian Engineers.
He was sent to France as a private and
earned a commission in the field at the age of
nineteen. He was gassed and returned to England
as an invalid "disabled for life." He recovered
but was still considered unfit to return
to the trenches. He turned down an
administrative desk job, joined the Royal Flying
Corps, and returned to France. He shot
down twenty-six planes, for which he was decorated
with the Distinguished Flying Cross,
the Military Cross, and from the French, the
Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre
with Palms.

In London following World War I, Stephenson
started his radio empire with the
purchase of a controlling interest in the General
Radio Company. He patented a process
that enabled photographs to be transmitted
electronically, now known as a facsimile, or
"fax." He was involved in the aircraft industry,
and a plane developed and built in one of Stephenson's
factories won the King's Cup air
race and ultimately evolved into the Spitfire.

In 1940 Churchill appointed Stephenson to
the position of director of British Security Coordination
in the Western Hemisphere. In all
his wartime work he sought anonymity, operating
under the code name of "Intrepid." In
this capacity, directing espionage and counterintelligence,
he was pivotal to the Allied
campaign.

In 1945, at the conclusion of hostilities, Stephenson
was knighted by King George VI, and
President Harry Truman awarded him the
Presidential Medal of Merit, the highest honor
available to a civilian. In Manitoba he was appointed
chairman of the Manitoba Economic
Advisory Board, awarded a doctor of laws degree
from the University of Winnipeg, and
presented with the province's top honor, the
Order of the Buffalo Hunt, Chief Hunter. Sir
William Stephenson died January 31, 1989.